Asifa Akhtar

Asifa Akhtar is a Germany-based biologist born in Pakistan, who has made significant contributions to the field of epigenetics, particularly chromatin regulation. She is Senior Group Leader and Director of the Department of Chromatin Regulation at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics and Vice President of the Max Planck Society. Akhtar was awarded EMBO membership in 2013, membership in the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 2019, and the Royal Society foreign membership in 2025. She has also received the Leibniz Prize in 2021, the International Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 2023, and the Baden-Württemberg Order of Merit in 2026. Akhtar became the first international and female vice president of the Max Planck Society's Biology and Medicine Section in July 2020 and was re-elected for a second term in 2023. In 2022, Asifa Akhtar was appointed Honorary Professor of the Medical Faculty of the University of Freiburg.